Pushkin anthological epigram: Poetics of self-referentiality

The article examines the nature and lyrical plot of Pushkin's anthological epigram (the analysis material is "Fragment" ("The darkness of night lies on the hills of Georgia"), "Nereida", "Beauty in front of the mirror", "Statue in Tsarskoye Selo", "Who grew the tender roses of Theocritus in the snow?" by Pushkin, as well as some anthological epigrams of his contemporaries). The ancient Greek epigram, distinguished by clear formal features and a wide variety of content, recorded, as a rule, only something static or instantaneous. This quality ensured, in the eyes of Pushkin's contemporaries, the authenticity of the transmission and perception of the object depicted in the epigram. In anthological epigrams of the first third of the 19th century, deviations from such primordial features of the genre as the elegiac distich and the absence of rhyme were allowed, but the static nature, anti-narrativeness, and embodiment of an instantaneous, non-deployable state characteristic of ancient models were preserved. In connection with the last feature, the question arises as to whether a lyrical plot can be realized within the framework of such a genre. Using the example of Pushkin's epigrams, which are not an inscription addressed to a really existing object, but create a convincing plastic image (creating their own denotation), it is shown that the event component of such texts (their lyrical plot) lies in the very act of embodiment of a visible object, in the act of its acquisition of existence. In a number of cases, this act becomes the subject of poetic reflection, the epigram comprehends itself and becomes self-referential. The substance of poetry, cleared of narration (Yu. N. Chumakov's terms), is presented in such cases as a self-creating and self-interpreting principle.